The Mysterious Doctor Death
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Whumptober Day 16: Stay With Me. The Mysterious Doctor Death and her new navigator at the beginning of a Deathrace. (Deathrace esque au)


A/N: my first ever story with Alice as the main protagonist. Not sure how i fared but. Well. I love deathrace 2000, so here's a fic about it. I've had this idea since I watched Hagan review that god awful thriller reality show murder thing Belinda Mcclory did a few years ago. Charlie is here because of course he is. Warnings: (canon compliant) Child abuse, implied sexual abuse. Not canon compliant: implied slavery, very very minor thoughts about death.

The first thing she did when they broke away from the group was turn the front-facing windshield camera away from them.

The second thing she did was spit out her gum, and stick it over the car's internal camera. Keeping it under her tongue for such a long time was uncomfortable, but she was yet to find a better way to keep unwanted ears away from her car. She didn't have any kids, her car was the closest thing to a baby she knew.

Not to mention she had this kid in her passenger seat and didn't want anyone eavesdropping on their conversation.

"We can talk now." She says, taking her eyes off the field in front of her for a split second to see.

"Is that why all your footage from the last few races is road only?" Charlie asks, and she can hear him frowning. He just had one of those faces. Mattie used to tell her she had a face like that.

"It makes me mysterious." She said, in reply. She needed to keep up the persona after all. It was no mistake her character of Doctor Death didn't like being spotted or recorded.

"Mysterious." He repeated, "Is that why they call you the Mysterious Doctor Death?"

When she graduated medical school, the only thing Alice wanted to do was solve . She wanted to get away from her home town, and she wanted to solve mysteries. It was her only passion, the only thing she was ever any good at. Or so she would think. She was a good pathologist, never let anything slip by her without examination, even correcting the police surgeon a time or two when he made an error.

That had been the happiest she'd ever been in her life.

She'd been happy at her small country hospital. But after the crash of the market, her small country hospital wasn't paying her loan she took out for medical school anymore. She spent so many sleepless nights alone in her bed, trying to figure out her next move. She wanted to find a better paying job but there just weren't any. As it turns out, women doctors were not and are not in high demand. It was Mattie who suggested that they race.

Even if they were only able to come in second or third, there was money in it. (and it would make her father very, very angry.)

There were some real sociopaths in the Deathrace, Alice did not consider herself to be one of them. The first year she raced, she went with Mattie as her navigator. Not only were they the first women to win; they were the first people to win without a single fatality. Their idea had been speed over trying to pick up bonus points. They got no shortage of them from finding the shortest routes and hitting milestones with enough frequency that they didn't need it. Neither of them wanted to kill people; they were both in the medical profession to help. She didn't enjoy thinking about the irony of someone who lived to help people competing in blood sport.

She was pretty sure that was why they banned same-sex duos. The two girls winning. Not just one girl. Two.

Not long after that, they started forcing all racers to use government-funded navigators, not just the government-funded racers.

She hadn't won a race since. The Break Away Racer turned out to be a dud. The nations favourite woman was a sham. Interviews stopped coming, so did promotions and free products. But she won that first race and cleared enough of her debts that she wasn't struggling with them now. She kept racing, it turns out no one wanted The Mysterious Doctor Death in their hospital.

"Why have you taken us their route?" She asked, trying to take her mind off her limited future prospects. The idea of never going into a morgue and never touching another scalpel weighed on her like a weight. If they were to survive, then she would have to dislodge it somehow.

"I watched your videos." He said, seriously. His speaking voice was soft, but strong. "Your favour faster routes with less people, attempting to make up points you don't get from killing pedestrians by hitting targets faster. Breaking off earlier to take this route should give us an overall twenty-minute advantage."

"If it gives us that much of a getaway why isn't everyone taking it?"

"There's no one to kill."

"Makes sense." She said, begrudgingly. The last two years her navigator had been little more than annoying, but this one seemed capable. "Can we win with no kills?"

"We already have one kill." He reminded her. He was right, they had accidentally killed Matilda The Hun on the way past when she tried to flip them. Serves her right. "So we're sitting pretty on five hundred points."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Assuming that we can hit these mile markers in time, we should be fine." He told her, looking up from his clipboard.

"It's not that I doubt you." She said, licking her lips slowly. She didn't want to cause a fight so soon into the race, she had a week with this man left and if they started fighting now it would just be a repeat of last year. "This race just wasn't built with people who aren't bloodthirsty maniacs in mind."

"You don't see yourself as a bloodthirsty maniac?"

"No. I don't. "

"Is that why they gave you the worst navigator?" She took her eyes off the field for a second to look at him. He was still wearing the ridiculous short short scrubs and pinned hat from the start line. Charlie Davis, average height, average build. She could detect the faintest hint of a limp when he walked but was in otherwise good health. He seemed young, but had a streak of grey in the front of his well-styled black hair. Nothing about him indicated his skill in navigation.

"Why would you choose to be a navigator if you weren't any good?"

"I didn't choose to be a navigator. I was a ward of the state." Ward of the State. Fancy word for slave.

"I'm so sorry about your family."

"Why? They're fine." He scoffed, "We didn't have any money, but we did have five strong boys. Probably got enough money when I was shuffled off into Deathrace to put all four of 'em through university."

"That's worse." She said, thinking about her own family for a split second. They broke through her carefully masked off barriers, sliding through cracks. Bitterness, anger, and fear. The staples of her childhood. She'd been told the whole time by her father if she ever told anyone anything then she'd be a ward of the state before she could even blink. Getting away from them to university was the best thing she'd ever done in her life.

Sometimes, she hoped they saw her on their broadcasts. Hoped that they saw her win, and even more, she hoped they'd see her die.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Brushing away concern was her nature, no matter how genuine it seemed. "Why are you the worst?"

"My routes were all based on speed, not destruction. This is meant to be a race, isn't it?"

"Stay with me, kid." She said, after a second, "We might just win this thing yet."


End file.
